SEO Myth #3: Search engines Can't Read Tables

I've seen it written in numerous forums that search engines won't read tables after they are nested a few times. This is one of the common myths that come out in the tableless design flame wars.

It's pretty much false for these reasons

  1. Obtaining quantative data on this from search engines is difficult due to their terms of use policy. Most search engines don't like you running automated queries on them and may try to stop you doing it.
  2. If you obtain some results and notice a correlation between types of tags used and rankings it doesn't prove that the search engine discriminates certain tags. It could easily be an outside factor.
  3. Search Engines don't care which tags you use and would not bother to write software to do so. It could also be unethical.

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It is true that Search Engines can't read data nested in too many tags. But this is nothing to do with which tag you use.




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